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New Zealand, Milford Sound |
Over the Christmas holidays, my niece and her husband, Cathy and Mike
Mayone, spent two weeks in New Zealand, driving, biking and hiking on both the
North and South Island, enjoying the southern hemisphere summer and New Zealand's unique landscape. I
thank Cathy for sharing their trip with The Intrepid Tourist. For more
about their biking experiences, you can go to her blog .
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Queenstown |
Part 3: New Zealand’s South Island Alps, Lakes and Fiords
As our airplane approached Queenstown, we marveled at the
surrounding snow-capped mountains. As we
procured our rental car, the agent casually said, “Oh, you are lucky to have
landed. They often divert to Christchurch due to the weather.” Having heard about the terrible floods that
had been ravaging the South Island in the prior weeks, I had been monitoring
the weather and relieved that we had some partly sunny days ahead of us. Given the unforeseen weather, I had also kept
our itinerary loosely planned for our five days in Queenstown, which makes for
a great home base for many of the South Island’s sites.
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Otago Wine Trail |
We rented bikes in the old historic town of
Arrowtown.
Its buildings reminded me of Colorado’s
Old Western towns.
Upon hiring (as they
say, rather than renting) the bikes, we didn’t get very far since the Farmer’s Market was just
coming to life.
Once on our way, we
headed to the
Otago Wine Trail that
follows a creek to the larger river and gorge.
The highlights of this trail include two suspension bridges we had to
cross, one of which was quite long.
The
trick is to not look down and not have too many people the bridge at once!
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Kawarau Gorge suspension bridge |
We also came to the
Kawarau Gorge Suspension Bridge, the world famous, original bungie
jumping site.
Seeing even the most
fearful people give it a go, it was tempting, but the vineyards were beckoning
us.
The vineyards are all right along
the trail so we stopped at a couple of them before turning around for the return.
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Drive to Milford Sound |
We picked one of our sunniest days to go to
Te Anau and the
Milford Sound.
Your options
are to fly, bus, or drive from Queenstown, with some tours providing
combination fly/bus/cruise day trip options.
It’s a two hour drive to Te Anau, and then another two hours to Milford
Sound.
We seriously considered the
expensive flying option, but determined there were too many things we wanted to
see along the way.
Mike was up for
driving, so call us crazy, but we did a day trip, stopping in the small lake
town of Te Anau in both directions for a break.
The beautiful landscape kept us occupied the whole trip, and the road
into Milford Sound cuts through a tunnel rather than having too many hairy
turns, so the driving was more manageable than anticipated.
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Milford Sound cruise |
Once in Milford Sound, we took
Cruise Milford’s two hour “boutique” cruise, which was a smaller
boat advertised not to be filled to capacity.
It is recommended that you book in advance during the high season, as it
would be a shame to show up in Milford Sound and not be able to get a cruise.
Also, there are not many eating options in
Milford Sound, so plan for picnic food.
The other tip is to avoid the $10 / hour parking that is closest to the
cruise docks and do the free parking / shuttle that is near the airport, making
sure you allow enough time.
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Milford Sound waterfall |
The cruise does a loop on Milford Sound going down on one
side to the opening of the Tasman Sea and back on the other side.
The greenish-blue Sound waters contrasted
beautifully with the steep, snow-capped mountains abundant with waterfalls.
The boat even went up under some of the waterfalls,
giving advance warning to those who did not want to get wet!
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Lupines |
We made several stops along the way in and out of Milford
Sound such as Mirror Lake, and to take pictures in the fields of lupines--the
beautiful, pink and purple flowers that bloom all over New Zealand in the summer.
We arrived back in Queenstown around 10 pm at
night, just as the sky was turning to night.
(New Zealand summer days (December) are filled with long daylight hours, making this
day trip more doable.)
For a shorter day trip from Queenstown we did the 90 minute
drive over to Lake Wanaka. It was one of the busier lakes with swimmers,
kayakers, jet skiers, boaters, and parasailers.
Tired from our previous two days, we kept it simple with a beach take-out
lunch and a lakeside walk. Plus, we
needed to conserve our energy to stay up for the New Year’s Eve Queenstown activities. After happy hour on our balcony, we walked
down into town around 7 pm when we heard the music begin. There were local bands playing to an enthusiastic,
mostly middle age with children crowd.
We found it to be a very “sane” New Year’s celebration but perhaps it
was still early. We headed back to our
AirB&B for dinner and balcony viewing of the fireworks at midnight, and we
wished our family and friends a Happy New Year 18-21 hours before the U.S.
would celebrate.
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Mount Cook Visitor Centre |
We kept New Year’s Day, a partly rainy day, even simpler and
opted for a walk around Queenstown, including
Queenstown Gardens. The next
day, we headed out for the last part of our trip, driving two hours to Twizel, and
then another 40 minutes past Twizel to Mount Cook, New Zealand’s highest
peak.
We oriented ourselves at the
wonderful
Aoraki Mount Cook National
Park Visitor Centre.
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Hooker Valley track |
Having fallen
in love with New Zealand’s suspension bridges, the
Hooker Valley 5 km fairly flat track afforded us with three bridges
leading us to Hooker Glacier Lake and closer views of Mount Cook.
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Hooker Valley hike destination with view of Mount Cook |
Back in
Twizel,
we checked into our AirB&B, slightly different accommodations, as it’s a true B&B
in the home of its owners with a farm of three sheep, two young cows, and
chickens.
Our balcony looked out onto
the fields where a Lord of the Rings battle took place.
Twizel and the surrounding areas are known
for their bright star viewing.
With the
long days, we were too tired to wait for the pitch black sky but we left the
curtain ajar for a quick peak when we awoke in the middle of the night.
Twizel, and so many towns we encountered in
New Zealand, made us feel like we were returning to a time in the U.S. pre-Big
Box stores and Amazon Prime.
The towns
still have the locally owned hardware and clothing stores, pharmacies, and
bakeries.
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Lupines and Lake Pukaki |
We perhaps saved the best for last with our final bike ride,
the
Alps 2 Ocean ride, which is one
of New Zealand’s 22 great rides.
From
Twizel, we rode through the middle of wide open pastures with views of the
mountains.
And then we reached
Lake Pukaki, with its stunning turquoise
blue water juxtaposed with the white capped Aoraki (Mount Cook).
It looked even more stunning on this day now
that the Australian bushfire haze had dissipated.
We rode the trail around the lake until the
trail ended, ate a picnic lunch, and then did the return trip to Twizel.
Our time had come to make the final drive to Christchurch to
catch our plane home. We left New
Zealand wondering why we had never had it on our bucket list. Its people,
beaches, mountains and activities afforded us a lifetime of memories and a
reminder why we travel.
Related articles and
links:
For more information about New Zealand’s amazing Great Rides
cycling initiative and an in depth look at all of our New Zealand biking
adventures, visit my
“Great Riding” articles on my Swim Bike Run Survive blog.
For an in depth look at the Milford Sound, check out Owen
Floody’s
three
part series.
Our South Island accommodations included:
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